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Portrait of John Milton for William Hayley
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Paradise Regained Book 4
"For though that seat of earthly bliss be fail'd,
A fairer Paradise is founded now
For Adam and his chosen Sons, whom thou
A Saviour art come down to re-install. [ 615 ]
Where they shall dwell secure"
Anna Beer in her biography, Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot made the following statement about the reader's responsibility as he pursued Paradise Lost:
"Milton is attempting to rouse the political nation...
The reader's involvement is critical, not just spiritually and emotionally, but politically. Milton believed that republicanism was the best mode of government for his country, but he also, by the time of writing Paradise Lost, knew what the English people would not, perhaps could not, deliver it.
...
Yet, alongside this elitist view is a concern to create those leaders, to create a nation that can enjoy political and religious liberty. Paradise Lost seeks to create 'fit readers', not just to preach to them. The hope is that those who pick it up will, through reading it, be able, for example to see how tyrants gain their power and, perhaps, next time, stand firm against tyranny. Paradise Lost therefore demands and creates readers who will be able to be alert to all its complexities, able to appreciate its ironies, able to share its anger and its compassion." (Page 347)
There are those who believe that the outer world of experience will never be changed without first changing the inner world's thought processes which effect everything to which man has access. Blake shared with Milton the determination to make the invisible world visible: to open the world of thought, the inner world which lay hidden so that the light which shown there could illumine the darkness which pervaded outer experience.
Philippians 2
[12] work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
[13] For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
If man is created in the image of God, he does not have to look outside of himself to find the guidance to give him answers to his life's questions. Milton and Blake looked within themselves, they followed the paths which opened to them, they looked elsewhere when they reached a dead end. The clung to the belief that the internal spirit would not abandon them but be with them always. They didn't create systems to which others could adhere but urged their brothers to cultivate a relationship with their inner spirits which partook of truth, light and love.
John 16
[4] But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.
[5] But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?
[6] But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.
[7] Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
[8] And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
[9] Of sin, because they believe not on me;
[10] Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
[11] Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
[12] I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Jerusalem, Plate 74, (E 229)
"The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man; & when separated
From Imagination, and closing itself as in steel, in a Ratio
Of the Things of Memory. It thence frames Laws & Moralities
To destroy Imagination! the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars
Teach me O Holy Spirit the Testimony of Jesus! let me
Comprehend wonderous things out of the Divine Law
I behold Babylon in the opening Street of London, I behold
Jerusalem in ruins wandering about from house to house
This I behold the shudderings of death attend my steps"
Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 231)
" I know of no other
Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body
& mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.
Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more. The Apostles knew of no other Gospel. What were
all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy
Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the
Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it
is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are
to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies &
Performances? What are all the Gifts. of the Gospel, are they not
all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in
Spirit & in Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing
to Man?"
Poetical Sketches, King Edward The Third, (E 424)
"The world of men are like the num'rous stars,
That beam and twinkle in the depth of night,
Each clad in glory according to his sphere;--
But we, that wander from our native seats,
And beam forth lustre on a darkling world,
Grow larger as we advance! and some perhaps
The most obscure at home, that scarce were seen
To twinkle in their sphere, may so advance,
That the astonish'd world, with up-turn'd eyes,
Regardless of the moon, and those that once were bright,
Stand only for to gaze upon their splendor!"
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